


Piano Man

by Lacrimula_Falsa



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Accidents, Alternate Universe - No Powers, First Meetings, M/M, Meet-Ugly, Piano, Pre-Relationship, Winteriron Winter Stockings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 22:40:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29125089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lacrimula_Falsa/pseuds/Lacrimula_Falsa
Summary: “Please don’t sue me! Fuck, please sue me! Don’t sue Falcon Movers! Please!”“I’m okay but I’m pretty sure the grand piano is firewood, thanks for asking.”The story of how Bucky Barnes totalled a priceless heirloom and got to eat caviar as a reward. (Well, maybe it didn’tquitehappen like that.)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Comments: 13
Kudos: 90
Collections: Winteriron Winter Stockings 2020





	Piano Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JustSomeoneUnordinary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustSomeoneUnordinary/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [JustSomeoneUnordinary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustSomeoneUnordinary/pseuds/JustSomeoneUnordinary) in the [winteriron_winter_stockings_2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/winteriron_winter_stockings_2020) collection. 



> This is for JustSomeoneUnordinary, who requested “Meet-Ugly in a typically Meet-Cute location” for the 2020 Winteriron Winter Stockings, which inspired this fic. If you’re my giftee, I hope you like it.

Bucky was good at his job. Hell, he was _excellent_ at his job.

The thing was, this wasn’t his job. _Sam_ was the one with the moving company catering to the rich and famous and _Steve_ was the one with the ridiculous muscles who hauled furniture for a living.

Well. Bucky had ridiculous muscles of his own (or so Wanda kept telling him), but _he_ was a personal trainer.

Point being, Bucky was only helping out because Steve had broken his (finger saving a cat from a tree, as Steve did) and Sam had been a man short for what he’d called “the job of a lifetime”.

Oh, it was the job of a lifetime alright. The rich and famous had too much stuff.

But splinters, blisters, bruises and a freshly developed aversion to extremely fragile antique furniture aside, things had been going alright.

Right up until Bucky had nearly dropped a grand piano on Tony Stark.

The sound of a splintering piano would probably haunt him for years to come.

The thing was, Bucky was strong. And a reasonably hard worker. He was not, however, someone who regularly lowered grand pianos from a first-floor height balustrade to a marble floor.

It would probably have been fine if he'd been doing it together with one of Sam's regular guys because Sam's regular guys were professionals. But things had gotten hectic because of a mishap with a Persian rug that had been unexpectedly affixed to the floor and so it had fallen to Bucky and Stark’s chauffeur to prepare the piano for lowering.

The belts had looked secure. They had _felt_ secure.

The belts had not been secure in the slightest.

There was a long moment where Bucky stood frozen in place, a nightmare vision of a man crushed under a piano running trough his brain in high definition.

Then reality reasserted itself and Bucky was halfway down the huge marble staircase before he’d even felt himself move.

Tony Stark was lying on his back looking like a kicked over turtle. He was not, however, lethally pancaked under a white grand piano.

“Please don’t sue me! Fuck, please sue me! Don’t sue Falcon Movers! Please!”

“I’m okay but I’m pretty sure the grand piano is firewood, thanks for asking.”

There was a moment of total silence where Bucky stood there like an idiot while Stark looked at him from the floor in silent judgement. Then Bucky managed to make himself offer the man a hand.

Stark ignored his hand, rolling to his feet in a slightly awkward manoeuvre before brushing imaginary dust off his designer suit.

“Well.” He pointed towards the ceiling with a finger. “Somebody up there loves me. And I’m assuming you are not a professional mover?”

Bucky tried to make himself look as competent yet pathetic as possible.

“If I say yes, will you not sue the company?”

...And damn his mouth. This was going to go over absolutely swimmingly.

To Bucky’s abject surprise, Stark didn’t immediately start yelling.

“Oh no. You totalled my mother’s piano. If I wanted to sue someone, I absolutely would. But my mother would never forgive me _and_ I'm pretty sure that my driver is at least fifty percent to blame for this. Also, I'm currently too caught up in the rush of being alive to be mad at you."

Bucky blinked.

“So you’re...not suing anyone?”

Stark looked at him for a long nerve-wracking moment. Then he pulled his phone out of his pocket and started tapping away at it.

“That depends. Are you free next Friday?”

Bucky was pretty sure he was in shock and had therefore missed half of the conversation. Except it wasn’t _him_ who’d nearly gotten killed by a falling instrument, so how the heck did that work?

“What.”

Stark tapped his phone against his mouth, pinning Bucky in place with a sharp look.

“Well. I’m not suing anyone, because that doesn’t magically fix the piano and because the billionaire owner of a flourishing megacorporation suing a local family company would be a PR disaster, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want reparations. I _did_ almost get hit by the piano and it _was_ a priceless heirloom that’s now kindling. There’s this ritzy gala next Friday that I need a date too. You’re a hot guy who can probably bench press a small car, so you’ll be a nice change from the usual curvy supermodels. Now usually I would never hit on someone I’m temporarily employing like this, but given that your incompetence almost got me killed, I feel like we’re even. So, are you in? There’ll be expensive booze and caviar. There’s always caviar at these things, it’s like rich people’s garlic bread.”

For the rest of his life, Bucky wouldn’t be able to recall what exactly went through his head in the moments following Stark's declaration.

He would, however, remain forever grateful to whatever wildly reckless being temporarily took possession of him to make him say

“Well fuck me. I've always wanted to try caviar."

Stark actually laughed. Then he _winked_ at Bucky saying

“Oh, darling. If things go well, the fucking comes later."

**Author's Note:**

> Story title from the Billy Joel song of the same name, because that was a low hanging fruit. I really wanted to write their date too, but alas real life wasn’t agreeable. Kind comments _might_ persuade me to “hand that story in later” one day.


End file.
